


Willow Tree Casket

by NonbinaryBlue



Series: My own works [1]
Category: No Fandom, Original Work, own work - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Ghosts, Mental Health Issues, Wakes & Funerals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-27
Updated: 2018-06-27
Packaged: 2019-05-29 12:39:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15073331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NonbinaryBlue/pseuds/NonbinaryBlue
Summary: Nathaniel loved his baby sister, Willow, more than anything but now she was gone and they both needed to say goodbye.





	Willow Tree Casket

Willow Moss did not cry often. Not even when she was younger and her brother had pushed her over or stolen her toys. She hadn’t cried when their mother died nor when their father died a month later. She hadn’t cried when she and Nathaniel had to just leave everything they knew behind and move up North to live with their cousin. No, in the twenty-four years she had lived she had cried at very little. She had never seen the point. She had been sad many times though, how could she not of? She had felt an aching in her heart, a pain so sharp that it never left only dulled over time, an aching caused by the absence of a caring, calming mother and reckless, silly dad. A pain caused by being strong for too long, for putting every problem, negative feeling and emotion in a little mental box and burying it under layer and layer of strength and deceit.

  
Her brother had cried. Nathaniel had screamed and yelled when they were informed their mother had been hit and killed by a drunk driver. He had yelled and punched the wall with tears streaming down his face when Willow had told him their father’s body had been found floating in the river. Had fought with everything he had to stay in the small town where their parents lay, where Willow and him were meant to grow up, where they’d made precious memories and irreplaceable friends. Willow admired him for that. For how he could feel so strongly and express everything so openly, could leave himself so exposed and vulnerable. However she preferred when he was happy, when he was so full of joy and life that his eyes would sparkle and he would smile so warmly it could challenge the sun. She loved when he would tease her and mess up her hair because he knew it annoyed her. How he would laugh so sweetly that it became contagious and would easily cause everyone else to start laughing too. She loved how he would be fiercely protective, defending his little sister from the monsters under the bed and all around them. How he would hug her tightly and cause the aching and pain to momentarily stop because in that moment she could be weak and he would keep her safe from the world.

  
Willow Moss had never yearned so helplessly for the feeling of her big brothers securing embrace as she had in that moment. The moment where she had felt her heart shatter and that mental box break open as she watched her brother, Nathaniel Moss, who felt everything so intensely and so raw, brokenly sob on her casket. She watched with salty tears streaming down her blotchy face, wondering completely bewildered how someone who was usually so full of light, who usually radiated the pure enjoyment of life, could break so hard, could have all their light diminished and replaced with a hollow darkness. She felt sobs rise from her throat as he murmured, through tears and with glassy eyes, the story he had made up and told her every single night after their parents deaths to help ease her nightmares. He smiled sadly almost as if for a moment he had expected her lifeless corpse to regain spirit, sit up and laugh, telling him how she was far too old for that silly story but instead realised that he would never hear his sisters voice again, never get to comfort her or defend her when people are cruel because they do not understand how she works.

  
That was another thing Willow loved about her brother, he understood how she worked. He understood that sometimes everything in her head got so loud it felt as if an earthquake was happening in her mind. He understood that something inside her became broken beyond repair the day they buried their father next to the fresh grave under which their loving mother rested. Unlike everyone else, unlike the doctors and their cousin, he understood that she was simply trapped in her mind, that she was stuck in a prison of her own creation, watching life go on without being able to do anything. He understood that the smart, gleeful, strong girl that was the sister he knew and loved was still there and the childlike person, the one people looked down upon with pity because they couldn’t speak with words like everyone else, because they couldn’t function right, the one that parents would quietly explain to their young children was very, very sick wasn’t Willow Moss.

  
She wanted to comfort him desperately, wanted to gently wipe away his tears and smile, assuring him she was okay and bring closure that she never could when she was alive. But she couldn’t then and she couldn’t now because her career on earth had been terminated and now she stood so close to her brother, but could not touch or be seen by him. Comforting him was not the only thing she wanted to do. She wanted to apologise. To say sorry for taking away his hopeful future, for preventing any ambitions or dreams of his from being pursued. For selfishly snatching away any chances of love or simply an easy, fulfilling life. For causing him to drop out of school and start work in order to support her. She wanted to say that she hopes he finds a way to rekindle his fire and prove to the world how bright he can shine. She wanted to say she hopes he can find himself, discover who Nathaniel Moss is, without the burden of his damaged little sister. But she never got what she wanted.

  
Silently, she observed as her brother delicately laid a strand from a willow tree on top of her body. She smiled sadly, a small smile, as she thought about all that the strand symbolised. She was his beautiful Willow tree and he was her dazzling sun and under his care she flourished. Slowly she elegantly drifted to the casket. She reached out, fingers grazing the twig of willow and just for a second it almost seemed like it glowed and just for a minute all Willow could see were memories. Every perfect, blessed, treasured memory she had ever had flashed before her eyes. As her tears halted as did her brothers and just for a moment it was as if he looked right at her, not through or past, but at. Willow smiled at Nathaniel. Tender, warm and endlessly loving. And just for a moment it seemed as if he was going to cup her face, but he let his hand fall and stood, pressed a kiss to her bodies forehead, turned and left.

  
Willow Moss watched as her brother left and for the first time in her life she felt she would be okay without her brother.

 

  
_Once there was a strong Princess of the willow trees. She battled bravely and was undefeated. She was loved by her people and cared for them graciously, protecting them from danger. The Princess was fearless, nothing halted her. That was until, while travelling through her ancient forest, she encountered a man. A man named Death. Death was a cruel and wicked man, he stole what people loved most and left misery in his wake. Death had haunted the princess’ people for centuries and no other ruler had ever been able to stop him despite many trying. But the fearless princess of the willow trees was smart, she knew Death could not be killed so instead she made a deal with the monster of a man: all those touched by the willow trees would be protected from Death and all other monsters. That was until they had lived a full and happy life, then and only then would Death come and steal their souls. The princess of the willow trees shook Death’s hand sealing a promise that would last for eternity._

 

  
Nathaniel Moss had stopped believing in fairy tales and foolish children’s tales a long time ago. Or at least he thought he had. There was one that subconsciously he had clung to like a life source. A silly little story he had made up years ago to help soothe his baby sisters nightmares, to convince her the world’s evil that snatched mummy and daddy away from them would never touch her. He realised far too soon at a far too young age that the world’s evil would not be stopped by anyone when his little sister lost a piece of herself and seemed to shut down completely. But she may have been broken but she was alive and if she was alive that meant that there was a chance that she could get better. Foolishly, he had clung to that idea, to that dream, but of course, reality comes calling and you have wake up, leave those dreams behind and come to terms with the fact that sometimes life is crueller than death ever could be.

  
Nathaniel Moss had lived a selfless life, he gave up everything for his sister, spent every hour of every day working, caring for her, helping her – or at least the stranger she had become. And now. And now she was gone and he didn’t know what he was meant to do. Was he meant to move on? Cry for a week, then dry his eyes and pull himself together? Lay flowers at her grave every Sunday, find a lover, get an education, get a job, make a life for himself? Because he didn’t think he could manage that, nor anything near to it. Nathaniel could tell that everyone else knew it too. How could they not, when he was sobbing like he was a kid who has just been told his mummy was dead, his daddy was dead, he had to leave the only home he had ever known; like he was a slightly older kid that held a glimmer in his eyes that showed he had grown up far too quickly; like he had just come to the realisation that he had lost all he had ever had; like he was an almost grown man waiting in a hospital, anxious to hear news, good or bad, just something to rescue him from the heavy pressure of not knowing; like he had just been told by a kind doctor with sad, tired eyes that his baby sister hadn’t made it and maybe it was for the best, maybe now she had found peace, over her casket?

  
He stayed like that for a moment, just laying in the pool of emotion and tears and memories. His sobs soon ceased and he simply basked in the beautiful, broken, bitter glow of loss. She was gone. His precious, darling Willow, who he loved and resented. Because, if he was being honest, there was an angry part of him that hated and blamed and sadly, resented her. And he despised that part of himself and did his best not to embrace. Yet, she was gone, so what was stopping him from welcoming that part with open arms after supressing it for so long. Truthfully it was the memory of her staring at him with wide, wonder-filled eyes, the first time he held her. The memory of playing in the garden, of climbing trees and sneaking snacks from the kitchen, always getting caught, which would be followed by a light scolding from their mother. The memory of puppet shows and midnight story telling’s. Nathaniel clung to those memories, accepting, that even in death Willow would hold an ever so gentle but strong grip over him that would prevent him from ever allowing that side of him to take control.

  
Silently, Nathaniel removed the delicate strand of willow from his pocket, laid it on her peaceful form. A strand from a willow tree for his little Willow. Tears flowed down his face as he thought about what he and his sister had made that branch symbolise. How they filled it with so much meaning and laughter and pain.

  
He must have been imagining the branch glowing, must have been imagining what seemed to be a blurry image of his sister, smiling, aware because he blinked and let his rising hand drop and the light and image was gone, leaving nothing but a strange feeling inside Nathaniel. An understanding that he will never be ridden of the pain in his heart caused by death, but it would ease and he would learn to live happily, efficiently, with it. An understanding that he could move on with his life and still remember and cherish his sister. An understanding that he was going to be okay. Not perfect, still broken round the edges but okay nevertheless.

  
Smiling softly he placed a kiss to his sisters forehead, took a deep breath and left.

_He was taking life one step at a time._

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed  
> Let me know if I need to tag anything else or if there is any mistakes.  
> Please leave comments and kudos!


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